FOR SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT

WASHINGTON, D.C. 
For members of Congress, Washington offers an intoxicating mix of power, money, and adoration.

Some keep it in perspective and work hard on the policy matters that drew them into politics. For others, the brew goes to their heads, creating an aura of entitlement that leads to all sorts of bad behavior.

“The longer they’ve been here, the more they believe the rules are not for them,” said Melanie Sloan, head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “When you have a lot of people kowtowing to you and telling you how wonderful you are, it’s easy to believe it.”

In Washington, then-lawmaker Bob Filner blended right in for 20 years. Back home in San Diego as mayor, he has sparked a firestorm. He has been accused of sexual harassment of women staffers, and says he will be found innocent with an independent review.

Egregious abuses are less common in Washington ever since the case of Oregon Sen. Robert Packwood, Sloan said. Packwood left in 1995 after 10 women — former staffers and lobbyists — told The Washington Post about years of alleged sexual harassment by the senator.

• Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., left in 2006 after sexually suggestive messages surfaced that he sent to former teenage pages.

• Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., in 2011 admitted to sending sexually explicit photos to women in a scandal that was dubbed “Weinergate.”

Filner had his own flare-ups while in Congress, including charges filed in 2007 after an airline employee complained of his barging into a secure area. In a 2003 dispute, an immigration detention officer said Filner demanded access at an El Centro facility, saying, “I am a congressman and can do whatever I want.”

Two women who knew him in Washington complained privately to a mayoral rival of Filner’s last year that his advances toward women were “relentless and disgusting.”

The 1995 Congressional Accountability Act specifically bans sexual harassment and created an office to handle workplace complaints. In 2011, the Office of Compliance got 23 complaints from the House and two from the Senate and made settlements worth $431,366.

Washington is certainly not the only place where inappropriate or illegal behaviors occur. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has received 11,364 complaints of sexual harassment in 2013 so far.

But the rarefied world that the leaders of the nation’s legislative branch dwell in sometimes compounds the problem. And of course, the high profile of lawmakers means scandals get more attention than bad behavior of, say, a small-town business owner.

Lawmakers control billions in federal money, draw millions in campaign donations and influence large parts of the U.S. economy, pointed out Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen.

“It creates a sense of entitlement and exemption from the law,” he said. “We see members of Congress think they can do amazingly ridiculous illegal activities and not understand how wrong it is. They are surrounded by staffers and members of the public who worship them.”

The power imbalance between lawmakers and their staffers or lobbyists also makes it harder for victims to come forward.

And staffers worry that if they report sexual harassment, it will be hard to find another job.

“It’s a small community,” she said.

Sloan says the structure of Congress may also contribute. A corporation with a board of directors and procedures for dealing with harassment charges is different from a politician whose bosses — the voters — are hundreds of miles away.

“Members of Congress only answer to constituents and by the time an election comes around, they may have forgotten about it — if they heard about it at all,” Sloan said.

The personal offices of each member are run, in many ways, as separate fiefdoms.

“Those offices have a king or a queen, and the Congress person is the last word,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Executive branch workers, by contrast, have inspectors general and the Office of Government Ethics as a check on their behavior.

The Senate and House both have ethics committees to deal with complaints against members. But the committees are run by other members, who may be reticent to throw the book at a colleague.

Harassment is just one slice of the scandal pie. Over the years, lawmakers have been accused of taking other liberties as well, such as using taxpayer-paid staff to run personal errands, pressuring aides to work on their campaign staffs and taking bribes. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was convicted of corruption charges in 2009 after the FBI found $90,000 in cash — wrapped in foil — in his home freezer.

In today’s information society, it should be harder for powerful politicians to get away with things, said Angela Canterbury, director of public policy at the Project on Government Oversight.

But, she said, Congress still is short on whistle-blowers because people who report wrongdoing don’t have enough protections from reprisals. Congress excluded itself from the rules of the Freedom of Information Act and the Whistleblower Protection Act.